Miles’ Night Out…Revisited

A few mornings ago, the farmer was walking through the field and noticed two little heads peeking above the grass. Twins! The only problem was their color. Jersey’s are not red or black. It was then that the farmer realized that the Lutalyse had not conquered all of Miles’ activities.

Interesting tidbit about twins that I learned: If you have twin heifers or bulls, everything might be just fine with both, although I did read that some could have reduced fertility or sterility . However, if you have a bull/heifer pair, the bull will be able to reproduce, but the heifer will not. She’s called a freemartin. Only 8% of heifer/bull twins don’t include a freemartin and the heifer will be able to reproduce. So, basically, you have a bull and a steer. Right?… Yeah. Because we all know that I know exactly what I’m talking about.

They are pretty stinkin’ cute, though. Don’t ya think?

A few days later, he noticed that one of our other Jersey mamas was off by herself (read: in the calving way), so he kept an eye on her most of the day. At one point, he found her with her back down the hill, which is bad. Vety,vety baud. When any cow, not just a bred one, gets her back down a hill, it causes her to get bloated and she can’t get back up. If the fact that she’s like this goes unnoticed, she will die. Why? I do not know.

Fortunately, the farmer saw her and hurried down there to turn her around. She was calving and having a hard time because of this behemoth.

The farmer had to pull him. This is no Jersey calf, my friends. This is a strapping young lad that looks just like his Daddy…Poor momma. Jersey calves are very rarely this large.

The moral of this story is we learned a lesson. The farmer now knows when to administer Lutalyse (we’re gonna’ try a month after if this ever happens again) and I’ve learned that twins are not really something you want in dairy farming.

Miles has also helped us create a new breed: Jerfords.

Oh yeah, and the farmer texted me this afternoon with a picture of a baby calf. Another one of Miles’ progeny.